Dr. Kane is the best professor for LS1 as far as I can tell. She integrated dense information with fun facts and stories. I enjoyed going to class every day and the tests were fair and straightforward as long as you review the slides.

I love Dr. Kane. Her class is extremely reasonable. Highly recommend taking her class if you can!!!

Prof. Kane is excellent for this class, as I had heard from many people before. The course is highly similar to AP Bio; if you did well in the class in high school, you should already know much of LS1. While the course isn't difficult in content, there are a lot of "components" to this class and your grade (exams, clicker questions, online quizzes, labs, lab pre-reading quizzes), so you'll spend a lot of time just trying to remember all of these things and staying on top of deadlines, which come twice a week or so. You'll also have to be tolerant of labs that might seem a bit pointless or like busy work.

Out of all the classes I have taken at UCLA, this was the best class I have taken so far. Professor Kane is such a great professor. She loves what she's doing, she's fair, and she's very real. I always looked forward to her lectures. They were easy to follow with well-prepared slides.

Her tests were extremely fair. The tests reflect exactly what was taught in class. If you make some flashcards and attend the review session that she holds before each exam, you will be more than fine. She even posts a study guide for you to use to help you study, and I used that to make my flashcards. There are two midterms and the final. The median score was an 87% on Midterm 1, an 82% on Midterm 2, and an 86% on the final.

She puts a ton of grades in the grade book, so you have a lot of room to make up points if you don't do well on a lab/exam. There are weekly activities online that are very easy and are graded on completion, which is a huge grade booster. There are online quizzes each week that are easy (disclaimer: I did read the textbook, so if you don't, I'm not sure if they'll still be easy). Attendance is mandatory and you get points for attending each lecture and answering the iClicker questions. We also had three opportunities for a total of 12(?) extra credit points throughout the quarter.

Labs are very easy and do not require a ton of work. As with most courses, the labs are not the most interesting and sometimes drag on. The work for lab is minimal, though, and it's graded pretty leniently.

I cannot recommend this course enough! If you have the opportunity to take a class with Dr. Kane, I highly suggest you take it! Coming to her lecture directly after a draining Math 31B lecture would always boost my spirits and remind me why I'm at UCLA.

Dr. Kane is THE professor to take for LS1, she gives a lot of extra credits. The exams are pretty easy, just read through the lecture slides and memorize the things she emphasizes on in lectures. The demonstration/labs are pretty annoyingly stupid but are easy points if you put the time in completing them. Definitely one of the easiest south campus classes I've ever taken.

Professor Kane is one of my favorite professors I've had at UCLA. She's very funny and cares about her students' understanding of the material. Her lectures are engaging and she often makes jokes. Her great personality makes the material more interesting. She uses iClickers to track attendance, but you get three free days and there are lots of extra credit opportunities available throughout the quarter. She offers midterm and final study guides which are extremely helpful if you complete all or most of the bullet points. The second midterm is more difficult than the first, but the final is pretty fair. Overall, Dr. Kane makes this class great. I highly recommend taking it with her if you can!

Professor Kane is one of more genuine and upbeat professors at UCLA. I love the way she organizes her slides as there's important bullet points and pictures that help us understand concepts. Moreover, a large portion (if not all of it) of the exams comes from the concepts/bullet points right out of the slides.
As a professor, she explains topics in a simple way and knows how to communicate well. She is very helpful in office hours and makes an effort to learn your name.
Exams: These exams were fair in that you should have learned everything from reading over the slides. The textbook isn't as helpful but she does get her lecture slides off stuff from the book so reading over the book is helpful in rounding out the concepts. However, I mostly focused on the slides and did very well on the exams.
Assignments: yea thes can be a bit of a pain but they are easy free points so don't miss these. She even gives us extra credit (up to 9 points which 4 test questions worth of extra credit).
You can miss abut 63 points in the class out of 900 and get a solid A. It's very doable, the concepts don't require a lot of understanding but more so just memorizing names, categories, and characteristics of cycles, animals, plants, and natural phenomenon. 10/10 would recommend Kane over anyone for LS1

LS 1 with Professor Kane was pretty enjoyable, the easiest LS class by far. Overall, this class was not difficult, but the content can be a little bit boring and the class has a lot of busy work that reminded me of high school biology classes (if you are not good at taking tests, then this may be a good thing).

TEACHING
Kane is a clear, engaging and funny. Her slides are very organized and contain pretty much all of the info you need for the exams. They are posted before lecture. Lectures are a good pace and it's easy to learn the material. They are also audio podcasted. The real motivation to go to lecture is to get clicker points, there are ~3 questions per class and you get 3 points a day just for completion, for 72 points total of the grade, and 3 "free" days.

GRADING
The class is on a 900 point scale which makes it easier to get an A, as the exams have less weight, but there is more work.
-72 clicker points
-108 Launchpad reading quizzes
-60 Launchpad activities
-180 Labs and lab quizzes
-140 Midterm 1
-140 Midterm 2
-200 Final

LAB SECTION
Labs are honestly pretty useless (but attendance is required) and consist of activities like running computer simulations and going around the class room looking at displays and looking at the questions. You read some material before your lab section, take an online 10 question quiz beforehand, and then complete a lab packet (activity) during section that you hand in the week after. I'm pretty sure the labs are graded based on completion. The lowest lab + lab quiz grade is dropped.

EXAMS
Exams are definitely straightforward and fair, and all multiple choice. The midterms were both 71 questions. Pretty standard stuff, from the lectures and labs. Doing the study guide she posts about a week beforehand definitely helps.

MATERIALS AND READING
-You need to buy $89 Launchpad access for this class, you can transfer the account if you pay a friend or already have it for another LS class. There's really no way around this because you need it all quarter and assignments are posted as you go. Every week there are 2-3 chapters that are assigned and a 12 or so question reading quiz due Monday at like 9 a.m.. There are also some brief activities that are graded for completion and due Fridays.
I did all the reading for the first midterm and it took me about 3 hours a week, I stopped doing it for the second midterm and got a higher grade than the first just relying on my notes, Quizlet, and study guide, so I don't think it's necessary if you want to save time.
-You also need a clicker.

Professor Kane is extremely straightforward and genuinely care about her students. I appreciate that her study guides are representative of the exams! If she says something will/won't be on the exam, she keeps her word on this.

I will say that this class can be a lot of work if you let it pile up like I did. Labs can also be highly tedious, but as a whole the assignments/work make sense. The first exam is easy to breeze through since it's very basic material (Hardy-Weinberg, scientific method, etc) but definitely watch out for Midterm 2 material as it goes deep into plants and fungi -- it's not as easy to guess what the correct answer is.

However, the final is extremely manageable, esp if you improve your study habits throughout the quarter. So def do not stress if you do not do well on Midterm 2 because I over-studied by far for the final.

Overall, I only missed two points each for labs/reading quizzes. For exams I received:
Midterm 1 - 93%
Midterm 2 - 84% (made a lot of silly mistakes and also crammed all the material)
Final - 95%

Ultimately I ended the class with 95-96% with the 7 extra credit points total (3 from week 1, 4 from teacher evals).

Would recommend Kane, as she is very fair and helpful!

I love Dr. Kane! I learned a lot from LS1 and retained a lot of information from it even after the quarter ended. She's an amazing professor who makes lectures engaging by adding jokes here and there. Tests are purely memorization (m/c) and I personally recommend you doing learning curve on all the tested chapters on launchpad, listening to her lectures a second time, do her study guides, and briefly going over your labs. There's no need to read the book and as a matter of fact, I don't recommend it if you're trying to save time and study for other classes. This class is not hard; there are weekly quizzes and lab, which can be tough and confusing but that's what your TA is there for (if your group can't carry you). She does iclicker participation points that counts for a good amount of your grade so they're basically free easy points if you're a good student and attend lectures. Oh! And she gives extra credit in the beginning of quarter and for completed evaluations. Good luck!

Unrelated:
Okay honestly I don't know why it took her so long to submit final grades because it's been over a week since our final (which was on scantron), so I calculated it myself and found out my grade that way. Besides the eternal wait for grades, I absolutely adore Dr. Kane because she's so quirky and funny. She's also a first-gen college student ahhh that's so cool right?!